YL Ventures Leads Orca Security’s $6.5 Million Seed Round to Deliver IT Security Teams Unprecedented Full Stack Cloud Visibility

I was watching my boys on the playground one Sunday afternoon when I got a call from my team in Tel Aviv. My family was about to leave to Squaw Valley for a ski vacation, however I knew that we couldn’t afford to squander what we had luckily anticipated was an exceptional opportunity.

Thankfully, we were right to act when we did. I’m proud to announce that Orca Security, our newest portfolio company, completed a $6.5M seed round led by YL Ventures. We are thrilled to have found such incredible entrepreneurs, and look forward to supporting Avi Shua (CEO), Gil Geron (CPO), and their team as the company matures into what will undoubtedly be a very successful new entrant to the cloud security market.

The Cloud Visibility Solution That the Cyber World Has Been Waiting For

In an effort to drive innovation, more and more organizations have been migrating to the cloud. However, armed with software designed for the previous (mostly ‘on-premise’) generation, IT and security professionals have struggled to keep apace with the ever-accelerating cloud footprint. Unfortunately, none of the platforms available today can access and monitor cloud workloads in a comprehensive and intuitive way. While cloud security posture managers (CSPM) connect seamlessly, they only provide superficial visibility. Vulnerability scanners promise deep visibility, but the asset-by-asset integration process required to deploy them is tedious and impractical, effectively nullifying the perceived advantage.

Even after integrating both CSPMs and vulnerability management systems, organizations typically have access to no more than 80% of their assets. In fact, Gartner listed both vulnerability management and cloud security posture management as two of their top ten security project recommendations in both 2018 and 2019. Given the shortcomings of both concepts though, it’s evident that any viable solution will require an entirely new architectural approach.

With Orca’s patent-pending SideScanning Technology, CISOs won’t have to compromise on either breadth or depth. The Orca Cloud Visibility Platform offers deep visibility into the security posture of all company assets across the entire cloud footprint. The platform deploys within minutes and seamlessly integrates with the current environment without impacting performance. Rather than depend on the assets to provide security posture, Orca’s technology integrates with the cloud infrastructure to read information stored in the virtual machines’ disks while they’re active. This one-of-a-kind platform truly helps overwhelmed cyber executives to secure their ever-expanding cloud deployment and focus on supporting organizational growth.

The Eight (!) Founding Superstars

With eight founders in total, Orca Security is by far the largest group of founders we have ever backed. To our delight, the entrepreneurs are as accomplished as they are numerous. The co-founders have more than 130 years of combined cybersecurity experience and collaborated extensively while working at Check Point Software. In fact, each and every one of them could have easily launched a startup on his/her own.

Avi Shua, Orca’s CEO, was chief technologist at Check Point Software. While working there, he designed and built dozens of cybersecurity solutions, some of which generated over $100M in annual revenue. Meanwhile, Gil Geron, Orca’s CPO, served as the director of R&D for gateway and cloud products at Check Point Software, where he supervised a group of 80 developers, project managers, security researchers, data scientists and managers. Both of them and the other six outstanding cofounders–Matan Ben Gur, Liran Antebi, Wagde Zabit, Hadas Amitay, Shay Filosof and Ety Spiegel–have extensive backgrounds in cybersecurity and advanced software architecture.

The Due Diligence Process

We got our venture advisor Andy Ellis, CSO of Akamai, on the phone the very same Sunday that my Partner Ofer Schreiber and our analyst, Naama Ben Dov, first met with Avi and Gil in Tel Aviv. Believe it or not, I interrupted Andy while he was attending a Patriots football game. Andy is quite the devoted fan, but he was very kind to take a few minutes to hear more about Orca right away. We didn’t speak long, but that first call confirmed for us that the concept was, indeed, exceptional.

We were so excited about the team that I had to meet with them in person right away. We flew Avi and Gil out to San Francisco where a driver picked them up and drove them to the Squaw Valley ski resort, where I was vacationing with my family by then. Tucked around a dining room table in a cozy, wooden ski lodge, Avi, Gil, our principal John Brennan and I, spent the next five hours chatting about the team’s goals and ideas over steaming cups of coffee.

As part of our extensive due diligence process, we very quickly placed customer calls with leading experts including Brooks Evans (Director of Security, Netflix), Roger Hale (CISO, Informatica), Dave Hannigan (Head of Security, Spotify), Ryan Gurney (CSO, Looker), Tim Mather (Former CISO, Cadence Design Systems), Justin Somaini (Former CSO, SAP), and Michael Sutton (Former CISO, Zscaler), all of whom are venture advisors of YL Ventures. Market feedback was terrific, and as a result Avi and Gil even landed some experts as value-add angel investors and advisors for Orca!

Their Eyes on the Horizon

Only a few months in, Orca already has a working product, which they’ve deployed at several organizations. Plus, they’ve already built a very healthy customer pipeline. The founders of Orca ultimately aim to provide all organizations with access to comprehensive, no-compromise cloud-native security designed for the cloud era. While many have tried, up until now, no team has possessed the broad experience, technical acumen, and steadfast resolve needed to venture such a solution and bring it to market. Indeed, with talent like theirs and direct access to YL Ventures’ network of over 1,500 U.S. customers and advisers, they’re sure to make their dream a reality!

Top: Wagde Zabit, Ety Spiegel, Hadas Amitay, Liran Antebi, Matan Ben Gur, Shay Filosof. Bottom: Ofer Schreiber, Gil Geron, Avi Shua and Yoav Leitersdorf